1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for secure booting of a printer controller, the printer controller comprising a processor, a first memory, a second memory and a receptacle for receiving a third memory. Furthermore, the present invention relates to a printing system and to a memory device suited to be plugged in the receptacle for receiving the third memory.
2. Description of Background Art
Control programs for printers are complex programs optimized for attaining the best print results with specific hardware of the print engine and for attaining the best performance also for complex print jobs. In order to achieve this goal, such a printer control program is highly fine tuned to the processing hardware.
These programs are vulnerable to modification by unauthorized persons, malware attacks and viruses.
In order to secure these kinds of programs from manipulation in general, it is important to prevent an external program from being able to take control over such a printer control program. At boot time, when programs are loaded in memory for execution, and control is handed over from one program to a next program, there is a window in time that is vulnerable to a hostile attack of malware aiming to gain control. Therefore, there is a need for a secure booting method.